Outside Scholarships & Grants

Adam Smith Fellowships are awarded to graduate students attending PhD programs in a variety of fields including economics, philosophy, political science, and sociology. The aim of these fellowships is to introduce students to and encourage them to critically engage key thinkers in political economy that they might not otherwise encounter during their graduate studies.

Support a year of research and writing to help advanced graduate students in the humanities and related social sciences in the last year of PhD dissertation writing.

The John Hope Franklin Dissertation Fellowship, named in honor of a distinguished member of the American Philosophical Society, is designed to support an outstanding doctoral student at an American university or an exceptional American doctoral student abroad who is completing the dissertation.

The American Society for Aesthetics has several opportunities for IDSVA students and PhD Candidates

ACLS invites applications for Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowships in American Art, which support graduate students pursuing research on the history of art and visual culture of the United States, including all aspects of Native American art, and who are at any stage of PhD dissertation research or writing. ACLS believes that humanistic scholarship benefits from inclusivity of voices, perspectives, narratives, and subjects that have historically been underrepresented in academe. We also believe that diversity enhances the scholarly enterprise, and we encourage applications from PhD candidates from all degree-granting institutions in the United States.

Supporting early-stage doctoral students pursuing innovative approaches to dissertation research in the humanities and interpretive social sciences.

NEH Fellowships are competitive awards granted to individual scholars pursuing projects that embody exceptional research, rigorous analysis, and clear writing. Applications must clearly articulate a project’s value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. Fellowships provide recipients time to conduct research or produce books, monographs, peer-reviewed articles, e-books, digital materials, translations with annotations or a critical apparatus, or critical editions from previous research. Projects may be at any stage of development.

The Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program offers opportunities for independent research or study related to Smithsonian collections, facilities, and/or research interests of the Institution and its staff. Fellowships are offered to graduate students, predoctoral students, and postdoctoral and senior researchers to conduct independent research and to utilize the resources of the Institution with members of the Smithsonian professional research staff serving as advisors and hosts. These fellowships are offered through the Smithsonian’s Office of Academic Appointments and Internships, and are administered under the charter of the Institution, 20 U.S. Code section 41 et seq.

The Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF) offers six to twelve months of support to graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences who are enrolled in PhD programs in the United States and conducting dissertation research about US Indigenous or non-US cultures and societies. The IDRF program especially welcomes applications from underrepresented institutions. Sixty fellowships are awarded annually

This one-year fellowship is part of the Museum's History of Art and Visual Culture Fellowship program and is intended as an independent research project. The fellowship encourages cross-departmental projects that explore connections between various cultures and collections in the Museum and that go beyond traditional boundaries, bridging the visual arts and other disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, performing arts, and fine arts. Fellows may explore connections between public practice, education, and the humanities, relating but not limited to curriculum development, gallery teaching, and interpretation. The project should relate to and make use of the Museum's resources, including its collections, libraries, archives, and programs.